


The Wolf In the Snow

by Rhoda_Writes



Category: HIM (Band), Hanson (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Romance, Fantasy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Survival Horror, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhoda_Writes/pseuds/Rhoda_Writes
Summary: Taylor travels to Germany on a hunch and finds an old lover he hasn't heard from in ten years. Who disappeared not just from Taylor's life, but everywhere. And who might not still be entirely human. . .





	1. The Wald

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort-of sequel to a short story I wrote for Various Artists a VERY long time ago. So long that it’s both unsearchable even from the Wayback Machine, and I myself have lost it due to various computer crashes in the meanwhile. I say “sort-of” because while there is some backstory happening here (along with a crack ship I’m pretty sure no one else cares about but me), I want this to stand on its own.
> 
> FYI, this takes place in an AU where Natalie and the kids don’t exist, because I don’t do Cheating Spouse stories. (And because I suck at writing children, but mostly the other thing.)
> 
> Written for Yuletide, but with some of the older, spookier traditions and legends surrounding it. There’s ghosts, snow-covered mountains, creepy woods, and werewolves. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Beta'd by MindYourMind

 

_”Tis the night--the night of the grave’s delight,_  
And the warlocks are at their play;  
Ye think that without,  
The wild winds shout,  
But no, it is they--it is they!”

\--Arthur Cleveland Coxe

There are some things a camera can’t capture. The searing brightness of the sky. The way the cold burned up your lungs and froze the tears at the corners of your eyes. The eerie vertigo of looking into the frozen lake, or “See” as they called them here. It was like black marble shot with the palest blue, only translucent, and it stretched down deeper than you could see. The mountains surrounding it were jagged, sharp-edged things, the jutting bones of some ancient creature that only needed the right spell to wake it up again. In the spaces between those bones, thick, twisted trees grew, too tightly wound together to allow for a path. It was dark as night in the woods, always.

I was losing myself in myths and magic already. In the daylight, it was easy to point, frame, and shoot the landscape. This was a beautiful place, after all. The snow made everything look cleanly swept, but it wasn’t pure white. Have you ever noticed that about snow? Billions of minuscule ice particles piled up on top of each other looked white from a certain angle, but only in the brightest hour of the day, when the sun had nothing to filter it down. In the shadows, it glowed blue. At sunset, magenta, turquoise, and tangerine. The land changed with the sky. Except for the lake. It only grew blacker and deeper.

Nighttime was different. The wind hissed and sighed through the trees. The stars were clearer than I’d ever seen them, but impossibly far away. The clarity gave them dimension, and distance. Dry flurries of snow twisted in the air like ghosts. The trees stretched into looming giants, puffed up in their snow-dusted evergreen coats, huge as skyscrapers. I could almost feel them watching me. Not that I believed in any of that stuff. I was a good, God-fearing Midwesterner, and I was too old to be afraid of the dark.

I’d heard only a handful of the stories about Bedrohung Wald. According to most of my sources, it didn’t even exist. GPS wouldn’t plot it, and my phone signal cut out as soon as my taxi turned onto the main road into the village. Even after coming here, it took days to be sure I was in the right place. Isaac had tried to talk me out of it. He had called me at the airport one last time before I left the country.

“Taylor, why are you doing this?” he asked. “You can’t plan a trip like this on a hunch.”

“It’s not a hunch, it’s . . . I don’t know what it is, but this is important.” It sounded weak even as I heard the words come out of my mouth.

The truth was, I had felt something pulling at me. Like a voice without words, or a picture without color or shape. I can’t explain it. I just knew in my bones that I had to leave. I knew it the way I knew one of my brothers was in a bad mood the second he walked in, before we said a word or even looked at each other. I knew it the way I knew a certain chord or lyric was important enough to build a whole song around it. I followed that feeling until I found Bedrohung Wald.

“At least update your Instagram when you get there,” Isaac had said. “So we know you’re not dead. Please?”

“If I do that, one of the fans will try to figure out where I am,” I told him.

“That’s the other thing. Why don’t you want anyone to know where you are?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to get lost. I wanted to know I couldn’t be found. I wanted to get away from anyone and anything I could recognize. This wouldn’t work if I felt like I could get back home easily. To Isaac, all I said was, “I just need the privacy.”

He sighed. “You’re a bad liar. Just call me when you get there.”

“Ike, it’s only a week.”

“Fine. But if you’re not back by Christmas, I’m coming to get you.”

I did call him when the plane touched down, but the cell service got worse the further I got from the airport. So three days in, after getting my bearings, settling out of jet lag, and booking a room indefinitely at this place owned by a sweet old German lady called Ilsa who called me “Farm boy” after she learned where I was from, I started to wonder if this had been a mistake. Unexplainable feelings aside, nothing had happened. I had learned about the history of the Wald: the thick woods on the other side of the lake, and the glade inside that allegedly was some kind of hallowed ground. They said the barrier between worlds was thin there, especially on the shortest day of the year, which happened to be tomorrow. The legend was, at the first crack of daylight on the the morning of the Winter Solstice, you could see beyond the veil to the other side. Only in daylight, or it wasn’t “safe.” If it was even a cloudy day, forget it, is what Ilsa told me. But I didn’t believe in that stuff. I wanted to catch the predawn glow of the winter sun through the trees. That was all.

Those were the thoughts swirling through my head that last evening before the Solstice, the rationalizations for what I was doing in this obscure village in northern Germany in the dead of winter, with no cell service, no plan, and a camera. The light was fading over the lake just enough to make me a little nervous. I got one last shot, and was getting ready to head back, when I saw him. Just for a moment, magnified in the lens, a sliver of movement behind the trees. I almost dropped the camera. It’s a good thing I was wearing the strap. Of course as soon as that happened, I lost focus. I tried to reposition the camera at the same spot and zoom in, but it was too late. He was gone. I half-convinced myself I’d imagined the whole thing.

What did I see, exactly? In reality, not much. A patch of gray against green. Then, nothing. My mind filled in the blanks though. Just like it had when I’d gotten the “hunch” to come out here, only now I knew what to fill that empty space with: Long, tangled brown hair. Porcelain skin and eyes like Arctic ice. A wide, expressive mouth that was both sensual and wickedly sly. He could spin lies like poetry and make you laugh as you fell. I hadn’t laughed like that in ten years.

“Ville?” I called uncertainly.

I was answered by a sharp crack right beneath me. The ice buckling under my weight. I had stepped out onto the lake without realizing it. The noise jolted me back to the present. I had to get back to the inn.


	2. The Night Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When things start bursting into flame, you should probably run. But Taylor doesn't like running.

The view from my tiny window showed the long, winding dirt road that wrapped around all the villages. It was peaceful, because of the greenery and the hills, but also a stark reminder of how far I was from civilization out here. With no car, and no cell service or WiFi, I was effectively on my own. It left me with a lot of time to think. Had I really seen Ville out there in the woods? If it was him, why hadn’t he said anything? Did he know I was here? How could I find him again? Did I want to?

Ilsa had a landline in the living room that I could use to call a taxi, but it would take at least half an hour to get here. The inn was about seven miles from the Wald. Not technically part of the territory, but close enough. Closer than most of the locals liked to get. The place’s history had seeped in everywhere. People kept their windows shut at night from the Solstice to the end of Yuletide, and hung sprigs of some kind of dried herb--Garlic? Lavender? Oleander?--from their front doors. As for the inn, there were little stone effigies placed at significant corners of the garden, like guardians.

There were other things, too, but I didn’t pay enough attention. After all, I didn’t believe in those things. Signs and hunches were fine for a soul-searching mission or whatever this was, but I couldn’t get stuck in that place. Ville was gone. He’d left me a long time ago. Sure, it felt fresh as always, but that didn’t matter. I stared at the empty road from my window until the stars came out, and went to bed confused and frustrated.

~~@~~

I woke up to the smell of smoke. The room felt too hot, and it wasn’t just the heavy wool blanket. The inn wasn’t especially modern. Ilsa had a gas stove for the kitchen and a clunky old furnace that was supposed to heat the whole house. My room had its own fireplace. No radiator, no central heating system. I had never lit the fire. And it was too hot.

I shot upright in the bed. An orange blaze filled the space. Fire--the place was _on fire_. Not just in the fireplace, but everywhere, surrounding the bed. It licked up the curtains covering the tiny window and spilled over the ceiling in molten waves.

Panic settled in slowly. The word “impossible” crossed my mind just long enough for me to blink, hoping when I opened my eyes, it would be gone.

And . . . it worked. In the blink of an eye, the fire disappeared. The morning chill crept back in as if it had never left, and the light returned to a soft, moonlight glow.

“What the Hell?” I whispered, my voice choked and sticky.

I got up, the cold floor biting into my bare feet, and checked the furniture one by one. The dresser, and the chintzy lamp on top of it. The wormwood side table and the matching wardrobe. The bookcase and the stacks of old leather volumes inside, plus one glass vase with dusty plastic flowers. The heavy framed painting over the bed--a ship at sea by sunset.

I saved the fireplace for last. It was a strange, slightly alarming piece of work. The overall design was conventional enough, if a little bigger than it needed to be. Plain brick at the back, an iron grill that opened accordion-style, and a slate mantel that jutted about a foot into the room. A couple of standard knick-knacks stood on top of it: candles, more flowers, wooden figurines of wolves and dancing children.

The strange part was a pair of glyphs carved into both corners of the mantel, and a third at the fire back. Some sort of rune. Then there was the broom leaned next to the hearth on the left side. Not a regular broom, not for sweeping, but a decoration. It was a bundle of narrow twigs bound together with twine. I’d seen others like it in craft shops before. Good luck charms, I thought, like horseshoes or stamped pennies, and equally harmless. There were just of bits of local superstition. And I didn’t believe in. . .

How many times had I said that to myself? Even after seeing that flash of movement in the woods? A dozen? A hundred?

I stood frozen in front of the fireplace. Another two steps, and I’d be able to touch the mantel.

_There’s nothing there,_ I told myself. _It’s an empty fireplace. You had a freaky waking dream for a few seconds, that’s all._

I forced my feet forward. The hearth rug was stiff, almost splintering. I came closer, and reached out.

A layer of dust coated the mantelpiece. Or was it ash? It was still too dark to tell. I had no idea how often Ilsa cleaned this place. It wasn’t perfectly even. There were dimples in the surface, like something had disturbed the grime. The marks were too small for fingerprints. I swiped my index finger over the mantel to be sure. No, they were more like tracks, as if a bird had hopped around and then flown back out up the chimney. A bird with four legs, and one too many toes. The mantel was warm.

Coffee. I needed coffee.

I pulled on my boots and coat and went downstairs. I’d asked Ilsa to brew a pot for me last night and put it in the thermos so I could have it first thing without waking anybody up. I drank down the first cup black without even tasting it. The second, I slowed down, blew on the surface, and wrapped both hands around the cup to ease some warmth back into my stiff fingers. The clock on the microwave said it was a little after 3 am. So too early to head out for my first light photography experiment. Or . . . whatever this was. I didn’t even know anymore.

What time was it in Tulsa right now? 8 pm? 9? Isaac would still be up. He had to be. I took my coffee into the living room with the rotary phone and dialed his cell number. I hoped he remembered this country code.

He picked up on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”

Not even a “Hello” first. I smiled. He knew me way too well.

“Hi,” I said. “Can’t sleep. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. What happened?”

I didn’t mean to tell him everything. Some heavily edited version of the truth, maybe. But then I started talking about bad dreams, and it all just came out. The fire, the shape in the woods, the legends about the Wald, the tracks on the mantelpiece. And Ville.

Silence hung in the air, crackling with static from the long-distance line.

Then Isaac said, “Come home.”

“I can’t,” I protested. “I have to see this through. Don’t you understand? Something’s been leading me here, I can’t just--“

“You’re looking for _him_ , Taylor.”

I sighed, and sank back into the cushions of the overstuffed living room chair. Isaac had gotten his heart broken before. He knew how much this hurt. He wasn’t supposed to just say it out loud like that.

“Am I wrong?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “No, just. . .”

“What? Look, I know you miss him, but even if you do find him out there, what makes you think he’d want to see you again?”

“Ike, don’t--“

“Well he hasn’t spoken to you in ten years. I’m just saying.”

Damn. He was really going for the throat this time.

Isaac was the only one who knew about me and Ville. It had only lasted a few months, but it changed my life. I got as far as coming out to my parents, but I never took the extra step of telling them I was actually seeing someone. I guess it didn’t go as badly as it could have. They gave me that, “You’re our son, and we love you, even when you make mistakes,” plus a side of, “Read this Bible verse and call me in the morning.” They took it like a confession. They didn’t shun me, but they weren’t really listening.

It was different with Isaac. He was weird for a few days, but then he got over it. That was why it hurt so much to hear him trying to talk me out of this. He knew how much Ville meant to me. This wasn’t about trying to fix my so-called “mistakes.” This was my brother trying to save me from getting hurt again.

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “He didn’t just stop talking to _me_. He disappeared. No one’s heard from him. Something must’ve happened to him.”

There. It was in the open now. All that stuff I supposedly didn’t believe in was getting to me. Bedrohung Wald was steeped in magic and pre-Biblical gods, older and meaner than the one I knew. That was what my dreams and hunches were telling me. Something had happened to Ville, and I wanted to find out what.

“Okay. What if you’re right?” asked Isaac. “What if there is something in the woods? What if that dream was a warning? Is that really what you want?”

I couldn’t answer. All I knew was this place was dangerous, and if my hunch was telling me what I thought it was, then the love of my life was out there somewhere. In the cold, and the dark.

“Taylor,” said Isaac, “Please just be careful. I know how you get what you’re on your own too long.”

Damn. Again.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Really.” But I didn’t believe it. And neither did he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm struggling to get an image to load here. I have one that I'd like to use, that you may have seen once or twice on the previous chapter, but it's not working. Rather, it's only working half the time. I'm using DreamWidth as my hosting site. If anyone has some idea of how to get it load here, that'd be awesome. Thanks!


	3. First Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn breaks on the Winter Solstice. Taylor finds an abandoned cottage deep in the woods.

When I first met Ville, he told me something I’ll never forget. At that time, I’d only seen him perform once. Some heavy metal festival was circling a few of the same venues as our European tour, and I got curious. He was like no one I’d ever seen. He chain-smoked onstage, laughed and joked his way through lyrics that were both romantic and diabolical, and moved with a lazy swagger like a Scandinavian Jim Morrison. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Later that night, we wound up in the same pub. He knew who I was, but didn’t really care one way or the other. It was the first time in years I’d met another musician who didn’t have some kind of preexisting opinion about me. After a few drinks, I started to realize how much we had in common. We both loved Neil Young, Bon Jovi, and U2. We both had fanbases mostly composed of teenage girls. We’d both been mistaken for women more than once. Then, I don’t know how or why it came up, but he asked me if I was straight.

Now, I’d heard at least a dozen versions of that question. But never quite like that. I scoffed, a sort of nervous deflection, and said, “Usually people ask if I’m gay. I don’t know what it is. People are way too fixated on that I guess. They’ve been trying to pin that on me since I was like thirteen.”

He watched me shrewdly as I kept babbling. His eyes were so pale and clear. It was like talking to a Jedi master. I felt like he could see straight through my skull. Eventually, he went, “Hm,” and took a long pull on his cigarette.

“What?” I asked.

“Can I give you some advice, sweetheart?”

The endearment threw me. He called everyone that, but I didn’t know that yet. I was so flustered, I just shrugged.

“If you want people to believe you,” he said, “it helps if you believe it yourself.”

I stared at him. No one had ever cut through my bullshit so fast. And he’d done it gently, which somehow made it even worse.

“You’re full of shit, you know that?” I said.

“Oh, always.” Then he cracked a smile.

I tried to stay angry, but I couldn’t help it. I laughed. In minutes we were both cracking up, and I’m still not sure what was so funny. Finally, I said, “Okay,” and ordered another drink.

He was right, obviously. I couldn’t lie about something I didn’t really believe myself. That was why I couldn’t make Isaac believe I was really okay. I was so damn far from okay. I was off the map completely.

The taxi came to get me at 4:30 am. It was still pitch dark. The driver wasn’t in a chatty mood. I don’t know if it was the time of day or if it was just different in Germany. I was too busy staring at the sky. By the time I got out of the car, paid him, and told him to pick me up again around noon, the dark had lightened to indigo shot with stars. I wasn’t far enough north to see the Aurora, but a night like tonight would’ve been perfect. It was so clear. I had no idea there were so many stars in the sky. The snow was blue. All shadows.

The path to the woods was around the lake, if you could even call it a path. It was clear almost no one came this way, even the locals. Especially the locals. The further I walked, the thicker the trees appeared. Just the opposite of how woods usually acted. As you came closer, normally the trees seemed to part around you, opening up pathways you couldn’t see from a distance. The trees of Bedrohung Wald clustered tight together, branches locked as if barring the way. There might as well have been a sign that said “Danger: Keep Out.”

I kept going, snapping pictures as I went, keeping the flash off. I didn’t want to disturb . . . well, anything. Even taking pictures was probably a bad idea, but I wanted some kind of record. Proof that I’d been here. In case something went wrong. I was hazy on what “wrong” meant in my head at that point.

When I reached the wood, the stars had faded from the sky. The shadows took on more color and dimension. The sun wasn’t out yet, but I could feel it creeping up to the horizon. It started snowing at some point. I should’ve realized then it was too late to turn back. It was still dark, and I was thinking about Ville, but I should have noticed the sky. It was so bright and clear, even in the bruise-colored light before the dawn. Not a single cloud in sight. And it was snowing.

“Bedrohung Wald.” The name meant something like “danger” or “beware.” The trees loomed overhead. Huge, white-cloaked monsters, allowed to reach their full height before being cut off at the knees and wrapped in electric lights for the holidays, stared down at me in an unbroken line. Like a warning. _Beware_.

How in the world was I going to find anything in there? Even in broad daylight? What was I thinking? No, really--what _was_ I thinking? That my ex-boyfriend had somehow been stolen by fairies or goblins, and I was going to rescue him before the clock struck midnight? Was that really easier to believe than that he’d just gone dark on me, and left? I had no idea what I was doing.

Then again, Ville leaving without any warning or explanation didn’t make any sense either. He was too romantic to just vanish like that. He would have given me something, turned me into a pretty revenant in one of his morbid love songs maybe. That, I would’ve believed.

“You’re losing it, Taylor,” I said aloud.

A twig snapped somewhere ahead of me. Somewhere under the trees, in the woods. Then I saw a glimpse of gray against green.

I didn’t think. I followed. The shape never quite solidified, and it kept a few paces ahead of me. My breath fogged the air, and my lungs burned as the cold wound its way through my insides, but I was determined not to lose sight of it. There was no clear path through the Wald. Just a space of bare ground wide enough to step into, and then another, never far enough ahead to see what was coming next. I stumbled through the trees as fast as I could, both not to get too far behind, and to keep moving. I didn’t want to stay in one place too long. The trees were still watching me. Their surrounding, eyeless gaze pricked my skin like pins and needles.

The dawn kept on coming, leeching the darkness out of the sky. When I looked straight up I could see the sky getting paler, but none of the light penetrated to the forest floor. My hands looked ghostly, pulling branches apart to pick my way deeper into the woods.

The glade appeared so suddenly I stumbled. The sun cleared the mountains the moment I broke through the last branches of the trees. The combined effect of the lack of that suffocating canopy and the full bloom of the Solstice sunrise was so dazzling I threw up a hand to shield my eyes. It took a few minutes before I was able to take in the scene around me.

At first glance, it was just a clearing. An empty space in the center all those trees. I could still feel them, but on the edges, none of that oppressive glaring I’d been ducking before. There was a well made of brick with a rope pulley and bucket. Then a few feet away, a circle of stones about three feet high, arranged like some kind of ancient sundial. In front of the largest one in the center was a smaller pile of rocks, smoking from the center. I smelled burning leaves.

There was a cottage too, a few yards away from the well. It was so tiny it probably only had two rooms inside, if that. There was exactly one window with greenish, dappled glass. Smoke rose from the chimney, this time with the smell of something cooking.

I got out my camera and started shooting. As I focused the lens I scanned the surrounding trees, searching for that gray blur that had led me here. Nothing appeared.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered. “Where are you?”

The scene was picturesque. Almost like being inside a fairy tale. Hell, maybe I was. I took picture after picture. Nothing else living showed up.

I paused when I got to the cottage. The front door was open just a crack. I pulled the focus tighter. A slightly pale shadow, roughly the size and shape of man, was lurking inside.

The door banged shut.

“Shit,” I hissed. Then I charged forward. In the back of my head was a vague image of witches with black cauldrons and candy houses, but I pushed it away. In fact, fuck it. If I saw a witch, I’d make her tell me where Ville was, and then we could . . . well, I’d deal with that part later.

The door swung open easily. Just like I thought: two rooms, one encompassing a kitchen with a wooden table, two chairs, and the still-smoldering fireplace; and the other a tiny alcove in the corner with a bed covered by a fur blanket. Fur. . . Gray fur, the exact same gray I’d been following this whole time.

No Ville. No witch. No one but me.

“Hello?” I called, feeling ridiculous. There was nowhere someone could be hiding. The place was too small. I held the camera up and looked again through the lens. I’d seen it through the camera before. Maybe that was the key. I scanned the whole place twice and saw nothing.

“Come on, I know you’re here,” I said. “I followed you. I _saw_ you. What is it you want me to see?”

Two minutes passed. Twenty minutes. An hour. The fire went out. Nothing else happened.

I waited until the cold sunlight reached its peak overhead, then conceded defeat. The snow was still falling as I made my way back to the woods. A bleak disappointment settled in. I’d been so sure I’d find something out here today. I even let myself believe all of Ilsa’s stories.

Before I ducked back under the trees, I turned back and spoke in the direction of the cottage, and whatever might be listening. “I’m not done with you,” I said. “You hear me? I’m not finished, and I’m not giving up.”

As my boots crunched through the stillness of the pine needles and hard-packed snow, I wondered what kind of oath I was making. Here I was, in the middle of a possibly haunted forest, on the darkest, coldest day of the year, promising whatever entities could hear me that I would not walk away quietly.

Maybe that was how I got caught up in what happened next. Maybe I had already crossed the threshold long before I reached the woods that morning. I’m honestly not sure. But at that moment, I thought I was ready to face whatever Bedrohung Wald could throw at me.

I had never been so wrong.


	4. The Woden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's wrong with the sky, and Taylor cannot outrun it. Also, a sexy flashback.

 

The taxi wasn’t there.

Don’t ask how I got through the woods back to the lakeside road. I don’t remember. I was too upset to remember. I waited by the stop where it had dropped me off earlier for almost an hour before accepting that it wasn’t coming. I tried calling, but of course I couldn’t get a signal. I couldn’t even get my phone to tell me the date and time.

The sky had gone bluish and overcast. Cloudy, just like Ilsa had warned me about. Then there was the snow, which was coming down heavier now, blotting out the view across the lake and down the road. That was when I started to wonder how long it had been snowing, and why I hadn’t seen the clouds before.

“Mind you don’t step onto that ground if there’s a single cloud up, Farm Boy,” Ilsa had told me. “Otherwise the Woden will snatch you up quick as a snared rabbit.”

I didn’t bother asking who or what the Woden was. Some old Germanic boogeyman, I figured, meant to scare children into getting back home before sundown. Superstitious nonsense. I almost wanted it to come after me right then, just to prove some part of the stories were true. I was disappointed.

No. Stronger than that. I felt betrayed. Conned into believing in something, even for a minute, that I knew was impossible. Oh, I was still getting answers one way or another. Giving up and going home empty-handed wasn’t an option. I just had to change my approach. But I had thought that. . . I just wanted to prove. . . I just wanted. . .

I wanted him _back_ , goddammit. I wanted to know what had happened between us. I wanted to know why he’d left in the middle of the night, without warning. Going to all this trouble, getting up and finding the taxi in the dark, braving the cold and the strangeness, and getting nothing back--it was like waking up on that awful morning all over again. He was just gone. No note, no goodbye--nothing. I tried calling, emailing, even messaging him on social media, but I couldn’t get him to answer me. It was the last time I ever saw him.

For weeks, I kept replaying the time we’d spent together in my head. Isaac warned me not too, reading my mind like always, but I couldn’t stop myself. He made excuses for me on the days I couldn’t get out of bed, and dragged me out of my room and sat me in front of the piano when he got sick of it. “Play something,” he ordered. “Anything.”

I tried. I knew what he was trying to do, and I loved him for it, but I had to know why. I kept searching for some clue that something had gone wrong, or that Ville didn’t care about me as much as I’d thought. It was easier that way, to blame him. It didn’t feel right though.

The memory I kept getting stuck on was when he showed up in my hotel room. We had run into each other so many times by then, always talking about music, or poetry, or anything, really. It was so new to me, spending hours talking about nothing and feeling this flushed, nervous excitement that he bounced back to me. In coffee shops, in museums, at backstage parties. Every time it was a shock to see him, but I had started waiting for it. Once I said something like, “We have to stop meeting like this,” before I realized how it would sound. He just laughed and slung an arm around my shoulders, steering me towards a table for two so we could talk more.

Then one night, on the last day of the tour before we had to go home again, he was waiting for me, just perched on the edge of the bed with his hands clasped, like he was deep in thought. I’d had girls show up in my room before. I don’t know how they did it. Bribes? Straight-up stalking? Internet tutorials on how to pick locks? I wish I could say I turned them all down and sent them home, but it did get lonely on the road. This was the first time it happened with someone I already wanted. The funny thing was, I didn’t know I wanted him until he was there. Then something in me went, “Oh,” and all the feelings I’d been pushing down suddenly made sense.

I froze as the door clicked shut behind me, my hand still clutched around the strap of my duffel bag. He stood up. He ran his hands through his hair, twice. Then he said, “Erm. Hi.”

A few seconds passed. The space between us crackled with expectation. I said, “Hi,” back, unsure what to do next.

After a while, he winced, and said, “Right. Sorry, I know you have to leave in the morning. I just wanted to see you. I mean, I wanted to say goodbye.” He kept crossing and uncrossing his arms, like he couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands.

I took in a few details at a time. His too-tight jeans, his Metallica t-shirt under a black blazer and skinny gray scarf, the silver rings on his fingers clicking together as he talked. He was _nervous_. I’d never seen him nervous before. I wanted to tell him it was okay, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even move.

He took a deep breath and edged towards me. “Listen,” he said. “I think there’s something here.” He gestured from himself to me. “If I’m wrong, or you want to tell me to piss off, that’s fine. But I can’t stop thinking about you. Before you leave, I just wanted you to know--”

I didn’t let him finish. I dropped the bag, closed the distance between us, and pulled him towards me by his scarf. The first kiss was short and sharp. Then his hands were in my hair. Then I was yanking his blazer off. Then he was dragging me onto the bed. Then we were kissing each other breathless. I gasped out, “I don’t know how to do this,” exactly once. He nodded, smoothed my hair back, and said, “I’ll show you.” Everything after that was a heated blur. Mostly, I just remember a feeling. I wanted to stay in that nest of cheap blankets and bare skin forever. We clung to each other like drowning men, hiding from the rising sun.

He wouldn’t have left me. I refused to believe that. He was the one who came and found me that night, and risked his heart for the possibility of claiming mine. These past few days, I’d gotten it into my head that everything I’d told myself before--that he had gotten bored of me, that he was using me the whole time, that it just didn’t work out somehow--wasn’t true. I had started to hope again. And then, nothing happened. I hated him for that. No wonder I didn’t notice the snow, and the clouds.

Once I accepted that the taxi wasn’t coming, I started to walk. It was too cold to go the entire seven miles on foot, but I didn’t care. I was too pissed off to care. As I went, I scrolled back through the camera roll. With no cars passing and no other devices working, there wasn’t much else I could do. The captures started out normally enough. The ones I’d taken of the landscape yesterday were pretty, but forgettable. Maybe I would put them on Instagram later. I could make something up about “inspiration” and let them figure out what that meant.

Then they got weird. Each picture I’d taken from this morning onward had something just a little off. The focus wasn’t working. Or there was a blurry filter obscuring the images, like it had gotten overexposed--which was impossible on digital. You could dupe it, but only after running it through a photo editor. The woods had an otherworldly gleam to them. The space between the trees was too bright, like someone _had_ strung lights up. . .

Fairy lights. That was what they called them here, wasn’t it? But that was impossible. Maybe I was overusing that word.

I stopped. I peered at the screen and clicked through the photos again. There--bright lights between the trees. But they were showing in pairs. Like eyes. I knew I’d felt something watching me. Those pinpricks of fear as I followed the thing through the woods.

Finally I came to the cottage. There was that pale shape in the doorway. I couldn’t be sure it was him. It was still too far away. But the next shot, inside the cottage itself, off in some shadowy corner, there was a silhouette. It was tall enough to be him. But it was also something else, that bizarre double exposure again. A smaller, hulking shape, like an animal. A dog, or a wolf.

The ground rumbled. I thought of earthquakes, then thunderstorms. I waited, but the sound didn’t dissipate. Also, there was no lightning. It just got stronger. I turned on the spot, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. The clouds rolled over each other like crashing waves.

Ilsa had warned me to stay away from the clouds.

The rumbling grew louder as the clouds tumbled down. They were sinking, coming to the ground in a roiling fog, and shapes burst through the mist and snow. Galloping creatures like horses, but all wrong. They had too many legs and eyes like flames. Clawed things with bat-like leathery wings swooped alongside them. Giant wolves, wild cats, reptiles, carrion birds, all of them mounted. Their riders held spears, swords, shields, maces, axes, and other medieval weapons. In front of them all was a monster of a man: broad-shouldered with long, wild white hair, and a beard to match. He rode the many-legged horse and carried a great bow and arrow. He was missing an eye.

The Woden. O-den. Odin.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. Part of my mind clung stubbornly to the word “impossible,” but the rest of me screamed, _Dammit, Taylor, RUN!_

I ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying the image upload again with boomersoonerash's suggestion of pasting into Rich Text instead. Let me know if you can see it? Thanks!


	5. The Hunt Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stampede of Nordic ghosts catches up with Taylor. Violent hilarity ensues.

You can’t outrun a stampeding mass of ancient Nordic ghosts. You can try, but the only difference is when they catch you, you’ll be out of breath and exhausted. They rushed around me like an angry winter wind. The snow blew past and scattered away in front of them. I was surrounded in seconds. Fear, the stitch in my side, the cold tearing up my throat, and sheer disbelieving panic all fought for my attention at once. It was too much. I collapsed to my knees in the snow.

The leader, the Woden, rode up and shouted something in a language I didn’t understand. He raised his bow and arrow and took aim.

I had nothing but my camera. So I used it. I turned the flash all the way up and pressed the shutter.

It looked like a bomb went off. The flash reflected off every snowflake and every particle of moisture from the fog. The fire-eyed horse reared back and screamed. Shrieks echoed around me. I knew I only had a few seconds before they realized all I had was light, and not a real weapon. So I set it off again. Then again. I scrambled to get my feet under me and paced backward. For a few wild seconds I thought I might actually get away.

Then it felt like someone punched me hard in the shoulder. I fell flat on my back. The camera flew out of my hands. I heard a crunch somewhere to my right, and knew the thing was destroyed. I felt a brief ping of mourning for the camera before allowing myself to fear for my own life again.

I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move. My left arm was pinned down at the shoulder. I looked, and there was a narrow shaft of wood sticking straight up. An arrow. He’d shot me with an arrow. I felt faint. I heard myself say, “No, no, no,” and I tried to get up again, but the arrow had rammed through my shoulder all the way to the ground. A pair of heavy leather boots tromped into my eye line. He spoke again. I still didn’t understand. He bent down so he was kneeling next to me and murmured a string of words in a rhyming pattern. A wave of charged energy passed over me like static.

“Do you understand me now?” said the booming voice.

I stared up into that wild, bemused face. The skin was cracked by time but somehow ageless. And . . . familiar. Like we had met in a previous life.

I got out one word: “How?”

He threw back his snowy head and laughed, a rich, full-throated bellow that sent an excited warmth through the air. It reminded me of something, but I was too dazed to riddle it out.

“So this pup thinks he can come into my woods, on my night, and ask questions, does he?” He laughed again, and this time the whole company joined him. It was a chorus of barks, squawks, cackles, and hissing.

“Please,” I sputtered. “Let me go. I don’t want any trouble. I got lost.”

“That you did, pup! That you did!” The Woden stood up to his full, impressive height again. “And now your toy is broken, and your arm has been shot.” He tapped at the arrow shaft with his bow.

A bolt of pain screamed through my arm. I cried out and grabbed the arrow with my free hand to keep it steady.

“Fenris!” shouted the Woden. “Come let this whelp up so that he might face me!”

An enormous shaggy black wolf emerged from the crowd. It padded straight for me. I kicked out at it, still trying to get up. The beast growled low in its throat, and I froze up. It crept closer. It lowered its dripping jaw to my shoulder. I could see its hot breath steaming the air. It was so close to my face it blew my hair back. I screwed my eyes shut. Then I heard a crunch and a snap. My mind blacked out for half a heartbeat. At first, I thought it had bitten my arm clean off. My stomach rolled.

Then the Woden said, “Up, man! Stand up!”

I looked. The wolf had bitten the arrow off at the shaft, and the tip behind me so I was no longer pinned. A chunk of wood was still buried in my shoulder, but I could stand.

It was hard to get up without swooning. I don’t know how I managed it. I curled my injured hand into a fist and gritted my teeth.

The Woden smiled. Again, I had that uncanny sense that I’d met him, or at least seen him, before. “Now then!” he boomed. “You are a very long way from home, young man. Tell me, what brings you to Bedrohung Wald?”

When I opened my mouth to respond, a wave of nausea crashed into me. I bit my tongue, took two long, steadying breaths, and tried again. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Ah!” The Woden nodded approvingly. “Might this someone be a woman?”

I grimaced. “It’s someone I love, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, yes. Love keeps the fires of the heart burning even on the coldest winter nights. Does it not?”

I had no idea what to say to that. What was with this guy? He seemed downright gleeful, friendly even. Despite the fact that he’d just chased me down and shot me.

“How long have you been searching for this love of yours?” he asked.

“Um. Three days, I guess. I mean, I got here three days ago.”

“And crossed the ocean?”

I stared at him. How did he know that? “Yes.”

“Such devotion is rare, especially for one so young.” He chortled to himself and clapped me on the shoulder so hard I nearly fell down again. At least it wasn’t the bad shoulder. “Well, pup, your story has touched me. _If_ you can find your love before sunrise tomorrow, the both of you can leave without being troubled by me and mine again. Provided you survive the night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's so short. I don't know why I seem to keep ending these things on cliffhangers. Next one is quite long, so hopefully that makes up for it.


	6. The Boy In Wolf's Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being shot with an arrow sucks. Being reunited with a lost love doesn't. This is a reunion chapter. I am getting increasingly bad at summaries.

They gave me a twenty minute head start.

I thought I remembered seeing one or two houses along the road from the taxi ride before, but I didn’t find a single one. Actually, nothing about the road was familiar. The snow had turned everything pale and empty. Every direction looked the same. I wasn’t even sure which way the lake was anymore. I just kept running. I don’t know what I thought I’d do if I found a house anyway. Bang on the windows and beg for help? Hide in the backyard?

There was always the inn, but beyond the fact that I would probably freeze to death before I got there, I couldn’t remember which way that was, either. Obviously, the Woden and his hunting party wanted to herd me back towards the Wald. It would be more fun for them to track me down in there. And I’d be surrounded by those eyes, and the trees, and the oncoming dark. Ironically, it was also the only place I could think of where I might actually survive the night, as he put it.

Then there was my other problem: Ville. I never should have told the Woden I was looking for someone important to me. Now, he’d be looking for both of us. I had to get to him first. Only now, I had to do it cold, scared, tired, in constant dull pain from the arrow shaft still lodged in my shoulder, and I had to race against a ghost. The arrow wound was leaking too, slowly but steadily, and left a nice trail of bright red spots behind me. I only hoped the snow would cover some of it.

I trudged through the drifts, which by now had deepened to over a foot of soft powder, and somehow arrived at the foothills of the mountains across the lake. There were walking paths back there, and hopefully a park bench where I could stop and catch my breath for a minute. In a way, it was a good thing I was too busy running to think. At some point, I was going to have to deal with the reality that an actual Norse deity and an army of fucking monsters were chasing me. Instead I just thought: Get to the end of this road. Okay. Get around this bend. Done. Follow this path to a bench. Got it.

The arrow in my shoulder had tuned itself to a dull ache, annoyingly constant but low-key enough that I could ignore it for a while. It had gone in clean, and the wood wasn’t splintering, so that was something. I had it in the back of my mind that pulling it out would make it worse, start a hemorrhage or something. But damn, it was hard not to mess with it. The edge of the wood kept catching on my shirt and jacket, which leveled it up to a sharper pain every time. I wanted the thing out of me.

It never occurred to me that I could die. Not really. It was floating around as a possibility, but I pushed it away. It wasn’t important. Staying hidden was important. Breathing and moving was important. The park bench that I did eventually find and collapse on--that was important. Most of all, I had to find Ville. Everything came back to that. I had an idea of where he was, but I was too turned around to get there. Also, my upper arm and part of my neck were starting to go numb. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. I shivered and tried not to panic.

A low, clicking noise sounded close behind me.

“No,” I moaned. “Go away.”

Seconds later a sharp sting pinched the back of my neck. I jumped up, adrenaline overriding exhaustion, and bolted for the thick of the trees. I reached back as I ran and felt a small bump, like a large splinter, right at the base of my skull. I could hear footsteps, and that inexplicable clicking, closing in on me.

_Dammit, leave me alone!_

A hunk of jutting out rock appeared in my path. It was too steep to climb, but maybe large enough to hide me.

Then my legs collapsed. It spread so quickly it took me a second to realize what had happened. My brain half-formed the word “poison” as I dropped, a tingling warmth spreading from that spot on my neck down my back, down both arms and legs, and into my fingers and toes. I dragged myself another two, maybe three feet before I stopped moving altogether. My vision was going blurry and dark at the edges. Time slowed down. A menacing presence was creeping up behind me. I heard the clicking increase in tempo, like a clock winding up. I braced for pain, praying for the poison to knock out my consciousness before then.

A shadow passed over me, and I spotted a blur of gray. A fierce, deep-throated snarl interrupted the clicking noise. I heard a hiss, then a sharp, furious barking. I thought of Fenris, but this was different. A gray wolf. Like the furred blanket I’d seen in the cottage. I tried to call out, but couldn’t. The hissing, clicking creature retreated.

The last thing I remember is a shift in the air, like static electricity, and someone turning me over onto my back. Some _one_. An actual human. Gloved hands touched my face, but I couldn’t see. I was drifting away too fast.

“Oh no,” said a voice I hadn’t heard for what felt like a hundred years. “Taylor, say something. Don’t do this. Don’t go to sleep. Taylor!”

Then it all faded into nothing.

~~~@~~~

I woke up to fire again. I panicked briefly, but it wasn’t the entire room this time. Just a regular, friendly fire, in an actual fireplace where it belonged. The crackling noise was comforting. As was the faint smell of something cooking.

Wait. Where was I?

A tall shadow moved back and forth across the room. No. Bigger than a room, but only just. A smallish, enclosed space, with a kitchen, table, chairs, and the fire. A tiny alcove with a bed. I was back in the cottage. Lying on that bed under a thick, furred blanket.

The shadow sat down in front of the fire and scooped something out of a copper pot into a pair of bowls. It smelled earthy and mouth-watering. His back was to me. I couldn’t see his face. I leaned up on my elbow to get a better look. He shifted just enough for the fire to cast a glow on his profile.

“It’s you.”

I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud until he turned towards me. Pale, ice-green eyes. Paler skin. Hair longer than I remembered, and he had a beard now, but it was him. He quickly put the bowls down and came to my side. There was a brittle sort of hesitation in his eyes, like he wanted to say something but was holding back. I sat up the rest of the way and reached out, snagging a fold of his sweater and pulling him down. For half a heartbeat, he knelt there stiffly. Then he pulled me close. I wound my fingers into his hair and buried my face in the collar of his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay. You’re safe here.”

So many things I’d forgotten came rushing back. The smell of his brand of cigarettes, the way his hair curled around my fingers, the feel of his voice vibrating against my skin. I’m not sure when I started to cry. All my emotions were boiling over. Too many thoughts piled up on top of each other: _I love you. I missed you. Where are we? Why did you leave me?_ I couldn’t bring any of them out, so they burst through my tears instead.

He gripped me tighter. Suddenly, I realized he was touching bare skin. My shirt was gone. Wait, was I naked under this wolf blanket thing? The idea sent blood pumping into all the right places. I turned my head and kissed his neck, then his cheek. He slid his hands around to my chest, then up to my shoulders. His mouth brushed over my forehead.

I whispered, “Am I dreaming?”

He smiled against my skin, and shook his head. “No,” he said. Then he took my face in both hands and kissed me.

I couldn’t hold him close enough. I opened wide to return the kiss. The beard would take getting used to, but I didn’t mind. But then I reached up with my other hand.

A thick, dull pain exploded from my shoulder. I cried out, breaking the kiss abruptly. That was when I finally noticed the bandage wrapped around the hole from that stupid arrow.

“Dammit,” I snapped through gritted teeth.

Ville pulled back immediately. “Oh, fucking hell,” he sighed. “Let’s take it easy. You lost a lot of blood.”

The word “blood” snapped me out of my sex-haze. Right. I was injured. Kind of seriously. I’d been distracted by the fact that Ville was here. He was _here_. He’d been here all along. I was right. I wasn’t losing my mind. I had _found_ him. More likely, he’d found me, and just hadn’t been able to get to me until now.

He pressed a cup of something hot into my good hand and said, “Drink. I don’t have anything else for the pain.”

I sniffed at it briefly before gulping down. It was hot spiced wine. Perfect for a chilly night even without impending doom looming outside. For a second, I could almost pretend we’d come here as some kind of Winter getaway. When I was done drinking, he handed me one of the bowls of whatever basic soup he’d put over the fire. Once my hunger was tided over, more practical observations started to click into place.

It turned out I was still wearing my jeans under the blanket. He’d just taken my shirt off to wrap up my shoulder. So he’d tracked me through the woods somehow, fought off God-knows-what by himself somehow, dragged me back to this cabin somehow, and managed to stop the poison, pull out the arrow, and patch me up without making it worse.

“What happened?” I asked.

He was at the window, having stepped away for a moment after watching me eat. I guess he was satisfied I wasn’t going to keel over again.

“Some kind of nightshade,” he said. “Just enough to knock you out, not kill you. They’re too sadistic for that. They want you conscious when they hurt you properly.” He came back to my side and checked the bandage. The feel of his hands pressing me gingerly, his face rigid with concern, jarred a half-forgotten memory.

“Why does this feel familiar?” I asked. “You taking care of me like this?”

He grinned up at me. “That time you got shit-faced at Mera Luna, maybe? I’m surprised you remember.”

I almost didn’t. It was a festival in Germany. I remembered the worst hangover of my life the next day, but almost nothing for several hours before that. He’d been with me then too, feeding me and keeping me hydrated, keeping the lights down and the phone off until I could face the outside world again.

Damn. We’d spent most of our time together in hotel rooms. There was something weird about that, something I should have noticed.

“You all right?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What is this place? What’s going on?”

“What, Bedrohung Wald? It’s a haunted forest, of course. What do you _think_ is going on?”

His flippant tone made me want to laugh. I was too tired to laugh.

“Okay, but all those people,” I said. “Monsters, ghosts, gods, whatever--what do they want?”

He shrugged. “More riders, I suppose. For the Hunt.” He glanced at the window again. “The Wild Hunt. One of the oldest stories around here. They’ve been trying to recruit me, but they can't enter the clearing.”

“Ville.”

His face crumbled when I said his name. He tried to hide it, but I touched his cheek and turned his face back toward me.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

Again, he gave me that frozen look, stuck between words that he couldn’t get out, and shook his head. “It’s a long story,” he said finally.

Fine, then. He said the Hunt couldn’t get in here. And I wanted an explanation. After all this time, he owed me that much.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”


End file.
